IT JournalThings that actually matter to software development2017-08-04T11:43:12Zhttps://it-blog.qarea.com/feed/atom/qaadminhttps://it-blog.qarea.com/?p=54582016-12-27T06:04:56Z2016-12-26T13:58:49ZWhenever a company wants to hire PHP developers for launching an important project or to maintain an existing one, they want to ensure the candidate is fit for the job. It’s obvious that one short interview is not enough to evaluate an applicant properly. Therefore, in order to make sure you hire PHP developer rock-star...

]]>Whenever a company wants to hire PHP developers for launching an important project or to maintain an existing one, they want to ensure the candidate is fit for the job. It’s obvious that one short interview is not enough to evaluate an applicant properly. Therefore, in order to make sure you hire PHP developer rock-star able to do the intended job, the biggest part of of the selection should happen before the interview. Below you will find a list of recommendations of streamlining your hiring process to make sure you don’t waste time and money and maximize the chances to enlist a true professional that will get the job done

First, we have to clarify this guide is intended for companies who want to hire PHP developer professionals to work full-time, to become team leads and form teams around them. If your goal is to hire a PHP developer freelancer for a one-time job – the first three points of the guide might suffice.

Now, let’s try to depict what the hiring process looks like for both parties. A company wants a long-term partnership with a professional who is able to launch and maintain lots of successful projects, which will bring profit and promote the company brand. If the company makes a bad choice, it will most probably fail to accomplish said goals, which will result in reputational and financial losses.

From the candidate’s perspective we see quite another picture – their goal is to promote themselves as the perfect choice to get the job. If they are good indeed, they will have their salary for a long time and will grow as a professional. If they are not fit for the job, they do not lose, however – they will get their salary for several months, will add one more line to their portfolio and will get some skills as a result. Therefore, they only get positive results, even if they fail.

As you can see, possible risks for a company are much more serious than for a developer. How to hire PHP programmer with the skills and personal traits you need then? The nature knows the answer.

How to hire PHP developer that will get the job done?

If we replace company, candidate and projects with female, male and children respectively, we can see that job interviews hold huge resemblance with reproduction partner selection. And this perspective gives an answer to the question – females in wild nature choose the males that survived DESPITE certain traits, rather than THANKS to them.

For example, argali have huge horns, and the one with the biggest is chosen by the majority of females. Why? Because if it was able to survive long enough to reach reproduction stage DESPITE having these horns – his genes are valuable. Peacocks have huge bright tails, and if a male with such a tail was not eaten by carnivores before – his genes are valuable, and so on, and so on.

How can we use this pattern in the hiring process? The most important traits and deeds of a great professional are not the ones he is paid for, but the ones he developed for free (the ones he developed not for gaining profit, but out of the need for self-improvement). For example, good PHP developers tend to take part in some open-source projects, local user groups, discussion boards and even at question-answer communities like Quora or Stackoverflow. They can be participants or even speakers at various PHP-related events, meetups and conferences, or take part in some scientific researches, etc.

However, clear distinction should be made, as there is a huge difference between being a subject matter expert (SME), providing useful and meaningful solutions to problems – and a forum warrior, engaging in never ending useless flaming. How to understand who of these two possibilities a candidate is? Ask another professional!

A workflow for hiring a great PHP developer

At some point of their careers, all professionals understand they have grown to the top of their own capabilities and feel the need to position themselves as SME’s in order to increase their market value, become known as educators and continue learning by teaching. Thus said, they become interested in selling their expertise in addition to selling their hard skills. Here is how a thoughtful entrepreneur can use this opportunity:

Full-time employees are less prone to help companies with hiring professionals (for several obvious reasons, from the lack of time to refusal of helping their competitors). Therefore, the best way to reach such experts is by contacting them on freelance portals like UpWork and other marketplaces.
Contact the most-appraised and expensive to hire dedicated PHP developer on each of these marketplaces (5-6 would be better) and offer them a chance to prove their expertise not through coding, but through evaluating. As their reputation is at stake, they will most likely agree to this offer. How to choose the most trustworthy of experts? Compare their portfolios, past experience and appraisals – or even ask them about each other. Chances are, they’ve already worked together or have any other experience and can provide invaluable feedback on each other’s expertise. One of them might be the person you need, after all…

If none of the freelance experts agreed to work for you full-time, yet one (or several) of them agreed to evaluate other candidates, you can move on to the next step. Tell them what you want to get in the result and describe the project specifications. The SME will help you understand what needs to be done, how the code structure in general should look, what parts of it should be written by seasoned professionals and what can be done by less experienced PHP developers; what knowledge is needed and what tools should be used in order to accomplish the project.

This knowledge will help you formulate position requirements for job offerings on different freelance marketplaces. Be strict but consistent – the more accurate your requirements are, the better. Use different wording for different job offerings to evaluate which proposal brings the best results.

Refuse low-skill candidates at once, as you are going to hire a PHP developer rock-star! Choose about 10-15 who have good portfolios and positive reviews.

Ask your SME to create a series of tests to check candidates’ skill. Codility helps in doing this greatly. Make the tests harsh, you need to make sure the candidates have great technical background.

Once the tests are completed, you will have 3-5 candidates with the best technical background to choose from and at this point you can appoint the date of the final interview.

Do some homework and research the stories of these candidates to find the traits they developed AN ADDITION TO or DESPITE their paid responsibilities, as mentioned above. Use SME’s help to evaluate if the candidate’s efforts were worthwhile or merely a waste of time.

On the final interview you can now check if the candidate has soft skills needed to run a team, as you can be sure they have the technical background to do this. You can also offer them solve a code problem on the fly to make sure they can deal with unexpected challenges (bad things happen, and in PHP development they can happen pretty much often).

Keep in mind that rock-stars perform greatly on the stage, but there is lots of work to be done aside of singing – setting light and sound, building the stage, etc. Therefore, your future team lead should be able to build and manage a team in order both to launch new projects and maintain the existing ones. If you need to hire a whole team for a project – repeat this workflow until the team is complete. From our experience, such approach helps cut down months of interviewing with uncertain outcomes to a couple of weeks of selection with a granted positive result.

QArea followed this workflow to build an outstanding team of PHP developers that launches and maintains a plethora of different projects. We hope this guide will help you hire a PHP developer rock-star and a great team for them – or just contact us and have them at your disposal at once!

]]>qaadminhttps://it-blog.qarea.com/?p=54342016-11-29T14:44:05Z2016-11-29T14:01:23ZHave you found the confidence to establish your own IT development business? Then you are probably wondering which IT sphere to work in. No doubt, today almost all IT products and services enjoy immense popularity among customers. Still, if you want to easily raise funds and to make good money, it is advisable to specialize...

]]>Have you found the confidence to establish your own IT development business? Then you are probably wondering which IT sphere to work in. No doubt, today almost all IT products and services enjoy immense popularity among customers.

Still, if you want to easily raise funds and to make good money, it is advisable to specialize in offering such software development services. All in all we have listed 10 stunning tech trends that were born in 2016 and are destined to stay on the top for at least a decade.

# 1 Create robots and software for them

Not so long ago one could not believe that all sorts of robots would become an indispensable part of our life. Today such machines are widely used for production, scientific and personal purposes. People are highly interested in robots that can do boring or dangerous work for them. Consequently, there are a lot of companies that specialize in producing robots for all kinds of factories.

In addition, there are machines that can substitute real life partners. Such robots can communicate with people and make them feel a little less lonely. Sure, millions of people are ready to pay a great deal of money to have such a robot. Due to the fact that robots are in great demand, the majority of investors are interested in the startups operating in this sphere. In addition, such projects often draw the attention of governmental bodies.

# 2 Develop autonomous agents and machines

Most of us have already got used to smart devices and virtual assistants. They can perform a wide range of functions, which provides us with additional free time. Still, to control them, we have to deal with menus and buttons, which takes some time and effort.

So, tech development companies do their best to create applications to make such machines work autonomously. These apps serve as intelligent agents—users can speak directly to them without using menus. As a result, virtual assistants, smart vehicles and similar machines have become even more user-friendly.

Sure, startups dealing with these technologies seem to be promising and are attracting the attention of investors.

# 3 Security architecture services

The number of people using PCs and mobile devices is constantly growing. We can hardly imagine our life without gadgets. Of course, they make our life more enjoyable and help us deal with all sorts of tasks, but they can also be used to endanger our personal information, money and even our lives.

The hacker industry is developing rapidly and new threats appear every day. Despite the fact that a large number of tech development companies take every effort to prevent cyber-attacks and to block threats, this problem remains a live issue. Governmental bodies and financial corporations, as well as firms operating in other spheres, are interested in the software that can guarantee the safety of information.

Consequently, if you offer this kind of software development services, you are unlikely to face great difficulties finding investors.

# 4 Apply virtual reality to treat diseases

Today, virtual reality technologies are mostly used to create exciting video games. However, they can also be used in other spheres, for example, in medicine. Special virtual games can help people abstract from pain or compulsive thoughts.

They can replace addictive medications which lead to adverse health consequences. Such technologies have been applied by the doctors of some medical institutions and they have proven to be a success.

These games can be used to reduce pain and to treat a range of psychological conditions, such as post-traumatic stress disorder. Still, there is much room for improvement. Sure, if you want your company to specialize in creating such virtual games, your team should comprise both IT development specialists and medical workers. However, it’s worth it.

You will be able to work with exciting and innovative technologies and make our world better. Besides, both private investors and governmental bodies are likely to support such projects.

PS: If you are really interested in the domain of AR/VR development feel free to check our whitepapers!

# 5 Develop software for educational AI toys

Today, one can choose from a wide selection of AI toys. Such toys are mainly used for entertainment, however, they can also serve as a means of education. They can even be used for teaching kids with learning disabilities.

AI toys possess numerous advantages over human teachers: they have unlimited knowledge and do not feel emotions. Consequently, they cannot get angry or treat kids unjustly. The use of such toys makes teaching children suffering from autism or other disabilities more productive. There are a lot of investors who are interested in this kind of project.

# 6 Create blockchain applications

Blockchain has proven to be a truly promising technology. It is expected that it will be applied in a wide range of spheres beyond Bitcoin. Since it is not so widely used today, if you start working on it now, you will inevitably achieve a great deal.

It is time to familiarize yourself with this technology and create new applications based on it. No doubt, investors will be interested in your company if you are one of the pioneers in this sphere.

# 7 Produce wearables and create suitable software

Apple showed us that wearables are on fire this season. The math is simple: due to their numerous benefits, wearable devices are in great demand nowadays. Customers use such gadgets to monitor the state of their health, to control their physical activity, to track the location of their children and pets and for other purposes.

Some wearables can perform such a great number of functions that they can replace computers. There is an immense selection of these devices available, but there is also room for innovations and improvement. Since wearables are popular among customers, companies operating in this sphere are attractive to investors.

# 8 Develop haptic software

Such technologies seem to be truly promising. They can be applied in retail, education, producing automobile equipment and other areas. For example, because of haptic technologies, customers can feel the structure of fabric while buying clothes or other items online.

Such software can be widely used in commerce, and as a result, such projects are investment attractive.

# 9 Offer AI financial services

Artificial intelligence is widely used by analysts working for banks, insurance companies and hedge funds. Such technologies are applied while working with data and developing anti-fraud solutions.

AI can make the whole banking system run as a well-oiled machine. Besides, these technologies can be used to forecast financial trends and even to prevent crises. If you decide to operate in this sphere, both banks and governmental bodies will become interested in your services.

# 10 Develop software for smart-home devices

The number of customers using various smart-home devices is rapidly increasing. These gadgets help us save a lot of time and make our lives safer. Today, there is no need to spend hours cooking and cleaning the house. Smart devices can do almost all the housework for you. Still, if you invent an innovative smart-home device or succeed in improving the existing software, it will provide you with both good money and fame.

Without a doubt, the immense popularity of such gadgets among customers makes this sphere attractive for investors. If you decide to specialize in developing the software for such devices, you will easily attract investments.

Conclusion

In fact, every sphere of IT business is promising and investment attractive. However, some IT development services are in greater demand than others. If you want your company to be one of the leaders in the market, you should keep track of the current trends.

In such a case, you will be aware of the technologies you should familiarize yourself with and will provide your customers with high-quality and innovative services and products. In addition, if you want to attract investments, you should keep in mind that investors prefer to support those businesses which offer sought-after services.

As for IT trends in 2016, these services enjoy great popularity: creating software for wearables, robots, AI educational toys, smart-home devices and blockchain applications, as well as haptic software.

Offering AI financial services, developing autonomous agents, and inventions in the sphere of security architecture will also ensure the success of your business. Besides, today private investors and governmental bodies pay a lot of attention to those companies which specialize in applying virtual reality for medical purposes.

]]>2qaadminhttps://it-blog.qarea.com/?p=54262016-11-02T09:49:34Z2016-11-02T09:49:34ZOk, did you know that 11 new small businesses meet their doom every single second in the US alone? I work in a software outsourcing company. In simple words – we develop and test products for other businesses. The job is great because our team gets a chance to work with an enormous amount of...

]]>Ok, did you know that 11 new small businesses meet their doom every single second in the US alone?

I work in a software outsourcing company. In simple words – we develop and test products for other businesses. The job is great because our team gets a chance to work with an enormous amount of tech-related businesses, both big and small.

And, while our sales division prefers Enterprise level customers (that’s where the real money are), my personal preferences lie with young start-up owners. It’s just too fun to interact with young, engaged, prominent people that are overfilled with world-changing ideas. Or so they believe.

That’s why it’s always sad to see some of them fail, especially after we’ve invested both heart and soul into development.

People are different, the problem is not!

Every now and then, a person walks into our office and talks about his potentially profitable idea. These people are usually experienced entrepreneurs that have a running business to back them up.

Sometimes we enjoy engaging conversations with students that want to start making millions right after they graduated.

One thing unites them: they have an idea. Yeah, it oftentimes makes little to no sense, but after a couple of discussions, it obtains a solid shape worth considering. That’s the good part.

There is also a problem most modern startup owners share. They do not understand the very way modern business operates.

Some folks are more old-fashioned and they look at cloud-based tech with a grain of salt. Others think that they can push their fancy Caffey websites without a mobile application to support them.

In simple words – people expect a website to solve all of their problems by magic. No ideas about monetization, no market research, no competitor analysis, no nothing!

People really believe that their idea is a creative masterpiece on its own. Their fancy talking toilet seat will just attract customers with its originality disregarding the absence of multi-channel marketing and solid corporate IT infrastructure.

Surprise – business doesn’t work like that!

You can invent Perpetuum Mobile in your basement but what’s the point if there won’t be a single person in the whole wide world that knows about it? A website can not attract leads, press, love, support, and loyalty on its own.

Solid technological infrastructures are the cornerstone that supports all of the Unicorns we love today. Can you imagine Uber with nothing but a website? The idea is not a technological solution. Uber is about cars. But they have an app, prominent marketers, and creative designers and so on and so forth. Why shouldn’t you?

Or, more importantly, why would you disregard tech for the sake of your faith in an idea that’s not proven as efficient yet?

Who is the owner?

We love clients that know exactly what they need. Alas, more often than not, young entrepreneurs knock on our door without a complete idea. They don’t know what they want, but, more importantly, they have no idea about what they should ask for!

There is a whole debate to be made about the importance of business estimations and it will most certainly end with accepting one simple truth: planning is the key to success. Ultimately, there are two major types of start-up owners.

Type #1. These are determined business owners who need successful business models and specified processes. Certainly, we can provide business expertise and polish the idea, but if the client knows what he wants, it is much easier to work with him.

Type #2. Uncertain entrepreneurs who do not exactly know how their idea should work. These business owners make the hardest cases. Sometimes, weeks pass by while we are trying to identify some core specifics of the project. This surely balloons the budget and makes the startup less profitable for both the developer and startup owner.

We, developers, provide a fairly simple service – we build a technical solution to a problem that our client has. That’s it. We are more than just interested in project’s success. However, we are not the owners of the product.

The ambiguities of IT

There is no need to break down how we work with type 1 clients, they know what they need. However, many inexperienced startup owners simply do not understand the importance of the IT aspects that their project has. This causes a problematic phenomenon – an unknown known. Together with the client, we can certainly create a functional business model. However, while we vaguely see the goal, the road is uncertain and full of unexpected obstacles.

There is a harmful delusion that has a hazardous nature: some people believe that their idea is simple to develop and can start generating income right away. This is the worst delusion to have. Unfortunately, many modern startup owners are delusional in this particular regard.

The startup and its IT infrastructure have a hard way before launching and starting to bring in profits. There are steps to be made and some of these steps turn out to be a mistake. So how do we build a startup?

Step 1. The idea. Even a basic understanding of your future project is often enough to outline its core features and how to build its IT infrastructure. A big social service will definitely need a liable backend to be scalable. An e-Commerce solution will definitely need multiple marketing channels.

Step 2. The prototype. We love agile project management methods. This means iterations, one following another! Your target audience should have a prototype and provide feedback. The earlier this process starts, the better it is for the product. We still do not have a complete picture of the IT aspects and keep developing them, removing or adding features and structures.

Step 3. Iterations. With lots of iterations, after dozens of mistakes, we create a product that has some distinct features. However, this product may vastly differ from the original idea that was brought to us by our client.

Step 4. The release. When we finish our work, the product has its shape, its core functionality, and is ready to be used as intended. Oftentimes, the final version of the product is nowhere near the idea. The idea evolved and transformed into a much more efficient product.

These 4 steps are obvious for any developer. Nonetheless, many startup owners do not understand it. They see their idea through the “green glasses” and believe that their vision is ultimately correct. This is most likely not true due to how diverse the competition in any domain. Various companies compete for the attention of customers on multiple levels including content marketing, social media, etc. In order to stay relevant, you simply need to adapt your project to the reality which justly looks harsh.

The unseen side of any modern startup

Imagine a company that grows and delivers baby carrots. For a simple company, the prospects of IT are concealed. However, such prospects exist and any startup owner should take them into consideration. What IT aspects does a baby carrot delivery company have? Let’s go step by step and break down the business model and how to improve it in the long run.

We gather and systemize data about customers, creating a solid foundation for future usage of various marketing usage. We create a functional database and start working with it by simply calling our clients or sending them short commercial messages.

We create a mobile application for those who need baby carrots. This application will allow our customers to make orders. We continue gathering information about our users.

We develop scripts that analyze our customers’ behavioral patterns. How often they make purchases or how frequently they run out of baby carrots. This enables targeted notifications and personalized marketing.

We start automating as many processes as possible and move to the cloud to expand faster.

The amount of IT elements that complement our startup scales with the growth of the company and its market share. This is why every single IT aspect of a startup needs to be scalable. It is easy to open a small grocery store nearby and cater to local customers. However, this is far from being a million-making startup. A true startup would be oriented to conquer the whole world with lots of grocery stores.

Rapid growth and fast expansion are impossible without a properly functioning IT infrastructure. A startup needs room to grow and technical potential to evolve. Additional departments, administrative processes, and the expansion of your network will most likely demand you to have a flexible IT infrastructure with lots of various processes being tangled together.

Surviving the “death valley”

The first couple of months is crucial for any startup. It is the moment when the company goes through the “Death Valley”. It is a scary place, a dark place. Usually, startups do not jump into welcoming arms of customers. Quite the contrary, they have to fight for the spotlight and provide exceptional service to stay relevant. This is impossible without a stable backend, bugless software, and innovative ideas.

This is something that many startup owners fail to realize. They believe that the market is like a friendly meeting at the university campus where every single guest is a good guy and people collectively “boo” bullies. However, the market is a tough place where you have to compete and survive. It is imperative to have efficient tools at your disposal to do so.

There are two key issues pivotal for a startup owner that wants to survive his journey:

IT tools are necessary and provide the most reliable support for your business model.

IT tools need to be efficient and sharp with a clear purpose and accented features.

For example, you start a business that sells T-shirts. You realize that most of your potential clients are teenagers that frequently use apps to make purchases. You decide to create a complementary mobile application with a built-in chat. Sounds like a good idea. However, you may not fully understand what chat features are important for the audience or make your application stand out. Many startup owners do not research the market.

The lack of research causes a very uncomfortable issue: clients mistakenly force us to work in the wrong direction. Obviously, we will figure out the best way to implement the idea eventually, but it often happens way too late and costs more than a startup can handle. It is easy to imagine IT aspects that can benefit your business model, but it is harder to actually understand how these IT aspects work and what purpose do they serve.

Expanding our limits

With so many startups appearing from seemingly nowhere, it is guaranteed that many startup owners do not possess a necessary level of expertise in terms of IT to successfully build a successful business model from scratch. It is important to understand that for us developers the success of the products we create is very important. We want to develop high-quality software and innovative groundbreaking solutions and we want them to succeed.

This is one of the reasons to drastically expand our regular offers and add services that we did not need to have before. There were times when we offered only technical services such as maintaining backend and creating software. Today, we have to account for the fact that many clients need additional IT expertise to succeed.

Rich business analysis.We have to analyze business ideas and actually scout the market. Such consultations provide deep insights for our clients.

Idea testing. Often, our clients do not have experience in beta/alpha testing and we have to deploy early iterations ourselves to receive feedback and gather information critical for the development.

Managerial insights. We help our clients to better understand how to run their business considering its IT aspects. It is much easier to hire people if you know where to find them and who to look for.

Services listed above are not necessarily paid services, they simply complement our technical expertise. However, it seems that without these services, it is nearly impossible to build a successful business process or solution for many clients.

We have to build such solutions and also educate our clients in terms of the importance of the IT aspects that support and accompany said solutions. Oftentimes, our vision of the product greatly differs from the client’s one. This wall of misunderstanding can be removed only through complex communication and education.

Conclusion

Every modern startup has inherent IT aspects. Every modern startup can be enhanced via adding features, IT infrastructure elements, and automated solutions. In addition, each IT aspect connects to a plethora of associated processes and infrastructure elements.

This is an issue only due to one simple factor: our clients have a rather limited vision of their projects in terms of its IT components or do not fully understand how various features and solutions work.

The paradoxical thing is that while IT aspects keep getting more and more complicated, many startup owners still live in the past. Hopefully, this will change soon enough!

]]>qaadminhttps://it-blog.qarea.com/?p=54152016-09-16T13:26:40Z2016-09-14T12:53:32ZThe news about iPhone 7 spread over the internet in a matter of minutes. Scores of reviewers immediately jumped on the wagon and started talking about this new device that, as usually, brings a couple of innovations to the table. The creativity of Apple engineers had a weird loop this time and we are talking...

]]>The news about iPhone 7 spread over the internet in a matter of minutes. Scores of reviewers immediately jumped on the wagon and started talking about this new device that, as usually, brings a couple of innovations to the table.

The creativity of Apple engineers had a weird loop this time and we are talking about the headphone jack. While this interface contradicts the idea of a device being waterproof, we are certain that a solution for this could be found fairly easily.

However, Apple decided that instead of traditional headphones we need wireless ones. Will you consider going for Android after the presentation? If not purchase, than software development…

Let’s talk about this design decision. Is it really that groundbreaking?

We remember that a couple of decades ago Steve Jobs actually released his version of the home PC and that version lacked some interface options that other PCs had. This made Macintosh a very interesting device and created a whole new subindustry.

The decision to heavily limit customization options led to unrelenting criticism of MAC, but it turned out fine.

Will the same happen with iPhones? Remember that Apple’s handheld devices are already somewhat isolated from other devices.

Many iPhone users complained about not being able to use specific features at some points of time or had difficulties accessing media they enjoyed. The downsides were quite visible.

However, Apple’s design team has always been on point and created highly attractive and high quality devices that people wanted to have.

Each of the iPhone releases was a big explosion. People would start pre-ordering devices way before they would actually hit the market. Users would go crazy about new features and start talking about the devices on social media networks creating even more hype.

The same is happening right now. Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram are buzzing about the iPhone 7 and its features.

However, this time, the feedback doesn’t sound that great. Many users are concerned with the removal of popular interface slot and criticize this decision.

AirPods to rule the world

Apple engineers surely know how to architect products that are nearly flawless from the technical point of view. Their design decisions may be questionable here and there, but the general consensus of the audience is that Apple knows its job.

When the news about AirPods was released, some people were genuinely surprised by this decision made by Apple.

AirPods are wireless headphones. When we say wireless, we mean it. The headphones are completely separated and there is no wire connecting either phone to headphones or simply headphones to each other.

The product is a couple of separate headphones equipped with a plethora of interesting features like motion accelerometer and sensor detectors.

The latter allows headphones to recognize when they are plugged into your ears. The slogan of the product says “Wireless. Effortless. Magical.” However, if you search AirPods on Google, chances are you will find an image that adds a new tagline to the slogan that reads “And Lost. *The F-word*. Immediately”.

Yes, two separate wireless headphones can be easily lost and it is a big concern for users.

On the bright side, wireless headphones employ a brand new technology developed after Bluetooth Low Energy concept.

This new technology conducts connections between various Apple devices and links AirPods to iPhone or Apple Watch. The headphones themselves have small batteries capable of powering them for 5 hours.

The accessory comes with an additional battery case that prolongs the battery life up to 24 hours of usage.

The accessory seems to be a very interesting fresh solution for those users who enjoy hi-tech. However, more conservative users will be left without an alternative with the headphone jack being gone.

The reasoning behind refusing to use AirPods ranging from “I simply don’t like them” to “it’s too expensive”. The spread of opinions is wildly broad.

We can totally relate to the latter opinion. The price of AirPods and “airy” high. With the pricetag of $159, AirPods will compete with the most expensive Bluetooth accessories. At the same time, some users that are afraid to lose them in an instant should be really concerned with such a high price.

The chance that one of headphones will simply fall out of your ear when you walk through a crowded place is quite high.

For those who like listening to music AirPods is not the best solution. Apple also introduced their new headset and it will be available later. Possibly, in 2017.

Curiously enough, Apple engineers believe that their design decisions are more than convenient and people won’t be losing their headphones left and right. Maybe, they were referring to their new headset?

The criticism

The amount of criticism this announcement received from the get go is immense. The vast majority of users immediately started mocking this decision going as far as saying that iPhone may become absolutely unusable without a headphone jack.

Obviously, we do not believe that this will be the case. iPhone is a great device on its own with a lot of new improvements and features that will need an additional article to cover.

Technical prowess of this device is outshined by the downside of not having an interface option for independent headphones manufactured by other brands.

Bluetooth is still a thing and some devices may be usable with iPhone 7, but the majority of smartphone users still prefer using wired accessories when it comes to listening to music on their handheld devices. Some people listen to music even when charging the phone.

Some internet wits started joking about how iPhone 7 gives them a new way of multitasking giving as an example the case when you want to listen to music while your device is charging.

While this is obviously a joke, the concept of completely wireless headphones sounds fairly attractive and convenient.

Another point of criticism to be noticed is that Apple engineers seem to be searching for overpriced solutions to nearly non-existent problems. For example, people never wanted to have wireless separated headphones.

Those who like hands-free options go for traditional Bluetooth accessories that often come as a unit for one ear anyways. Those who would like to listen to music prefer Bluetooth audio headsets. Again, these are not separated things.

The solution to a non-existent problem creates a new issue. Buying AirPods is like purchasing three devices in one: your left headphone, your right headphone, and a mandatory battery case.

Let’s face it, many of us have troubles managing even one separate accessory let alone two. This is a problem that cannot be ignored.

While using AirPods may be enjoyable and easy, taking care of them is a more complicated matter that may actually burden a user.

Is the criticism justified? Yes, and no. While some fans go as far as creating a parody website that advertises appleplugs, others try to find positives in all this mess created by Apple marketing campaign.

There are some advantages of having no headphone jack.

The Truly Shining Bright Side

iPhone 7 developers claim this device to be totally waterproof. No amount of water and water pressure can make this device drown and malfunction.

Even some divers who do not reach the bottom of the ocean can take their favorite smartphones with them to the deeps of seas. Browsing your Facebook page from under the water surface may be a bit uncomfortable, but Instagram feed will be filled with selfies with oceanic backgrounds.

This is also a joke. However, the device is resistant to water and having no headphone jack helps big time.

There are simply less holes to be worried about. The problem is that waterproof is another seemingly unnecessary solution. We do not think that crowds of users were using their smartphones during heavy rains or under water anyways. The amount of users that will find waterproof actually useful is fairly small.

Yes, it is a good marketing move to add yet another level of reliability to your device, but honestly, that’s it. You do not get anything truly useful. Your phone will still be vulnerable to physical damage, it is not just as vulnerable to cyber threats as any other device, and try remember how many times you actually wished that your iPhone 6 was waterproof.

Nonetheless, the device is equipped with an advanced processor that will make it much faster and way more efficient at handling specific tasks. The brand new A10 Fusion processor is 40% faster than its predecessor and their new graphic processor is 50% faster than the A9. These upgrades are actually quite useful to anyone.

You can enjoy only browsing your social media or be a technical geek who makes movies on your smartphone, in both cases chances are that you will enjoy the boost of performance that iPhone 7 gives you.

iPhone is also equipped with dual cameras. Both cameras can capture high quality video and make the device way more versatile that anticipated. It is a good solution for vloggers and creative minds, it also caters to the audience of users who like to post selfies in their Instagram, Snapchat, and Facebook.

While this sounds a bit silly to an intellectual minority of tech geeks, this is a big attraction for casual users who make the vast majority of Apple customers.

Yes, there are advantages to be found in iPhone 7. However, the release still left more questions than answers and made many specialists scratch their heads perplexed with the ambiguity of Apple’s design philosophy.

]]>qaadminhttps://it-blog.qarea.com/?p=54012016-09-16T12:21:31Z2016-08-22T12:36:56ZHow to become a successful businessman? Millions of people around the world are eager to learn the answer to this question. Success consists of a range of components, such as a promising idea, excellent skills, a deep knowledge of market tendencies, insistence, diligence and others. No doubt, if you are a novice entrepreneur and want...

]]>How to become a successful businessman? Millions of people around the world are eager to learn the answer to this question. Success consists of a range of components, such as a promising idea, excellent skills, a deep knowledge of market tendencies, insistence, diligence and others.

No doubt, if you are a novice entrepreneur and want to achieve success in business, it is advisable to familiarize yourself with some business tips and advice.

Although there are millions of business guides available, it can turn out to be a problem to choose those which are worth your attention. If you don’t want to waste time on reading books, which contain tips that don’t work, as well as on applying useless methods, pay attention to those guides which are recommended by people who have already achieved a great deal.

These are some of the business self-guides that have proven to help people run their companies in a productive way. These are the books the world’s top entrepreneurs draw inspiration from.

#1 The 4-Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferriss

This book became a bestseller very soon after its release. It is a guide to a new lifestyle. The author of the book has gotten tired of working fourteen hours per day and the lack of free time, and as a result he has developed his own lifestyle.

Today he is running a publishing company and is working as an advisor to a number of famous companies. Tim is also an angel investor.

In his book, he depicts four main components of the lifestyle he leads. According to Timothy Ferriss, to change one’s life, one should, first of all, determine his life goals and priorities. He also recommends people to work more effectively and to organize their work so that they have more free time.

To do that, one should spend time only on those tasks and duties that are really important. They constitute 20% of the workload. One should abandon all the other stuff and learn to say “no” to those who try to draw him away from his work. The author also advises to establish a business that will run itself and to hire a virtual assistant to cope with some of the tasks.

He suggests that it is better to have an opportunity to work from home and to move whenever and wherever you want. In addition, he gives some advice on living in different countries. As you can see, this book not only contains some business tips, but also teaches people how to make a new life.

#2 The Lean Startup by Eric Ries

The author of this book is the creator of his own startup methodology. He is the one who has given rise to the lean startup movement. He has co-founded IMVU, a popular 3D chat. Eric Ries is both an excellent IT specialist and a successful entrepreneur.

As you have probably guessed, in this book Eric Ries discloses the details of his own scientific approach to establishing and managing startups. His ideas are based on and inspired by the principles of lean manufacturing.

He claims that scientific experiments, “validated learning” and practices that belie the common sense allow one to shorten the product development cycle. This approach also contributes to the reduction of risks. He does not appreciate complex business plans and provides a technique which allows you to continuously adjust the strategy of the company in the course of its development.

#3 Rework by Jason Fried & David Heinemeier Hansson

The authors of this book are successful businessmen; they have founded 37signals, which is a top software company. They have collected all their useful experience, tips and advice in their book, which is a guide to managing a business in an effective way.

It is noteworthy that these entrepreneurs have an unusual approach to managing. Their company consists of about twenty employees and it does not have a marketing department. They do not conduct meetings and boards, and their business is prospering. The success of their company is evidence that the advice they give in their guide works.

Their ideas contradict the opinions of most business trainers. They prefer making plans for a day or a week to wasting time on long-term business plans, which can turn out to be useless in case any of the circumstances change.

In addition, they say that it is better to determine the most suitable size for your company and stick to it than to make every effort for it to grow. Besides, if the number of employees is too large, you can end up having to reduce the staff, which will inevitably have a serious impact on the performance of other staff members.

As for an exit strategy, the authors of this book recommend novice businessmen to focus on providing customers with quality products and services instead of thinking whom to sell their companies to.

#4 Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon

Napoleon Hill was one of the first authors specializing in self-help guides for business. He is also famous for working as an advisor to one of the American presidents. This book has turned out to be a success. It has retained its popularity down to our days.

The book contains the thoughts and ideas of more than five hundred successful businessmen, who started from nothing and managed to become great. When you finish reading it, you will know what to do to become rich and how to do it.

This guide comprises thirteen principles of earning money, which will come in handy for every person who wants to become financially independent. However, its author highlights that wealth accumulation should not be the only life goal. To be happy one should appreciate such values as friendship, family, love, productive and warm business relationships, and inner harmony.

#5 The E-Myth Revisited by Michael E. Gerber

The author of this book is a management guru who specializes in helping small businesses. He has established several business skills training companies. The point is that millions of businesses are established by people who have excellent technical skills, but no business skills at all. Michael provides such people with advice and tips that help them to achieve a great deal.

In the book, Michael E. Gerber explodes the myths about establishing your own company and analyzes the factors that can cause difficulties and prevent you from transforming your business into a leader in the market.

He discloses all the stages of company development in order to show how to reach immense success. He also tells novice businessmen how to effectively apply franchising principles, managing any kind of a company. At the end, Gerber explains the difference between “working on your business” and “working in your business”.

#6 The $100 Startup by Chris Guillebeau

Chris Guillebeau is famous for his series of business and travel guides. He is fond of traveling and has visited every country in the world. He has never had a traditional job, but he has managed to turn a number of his ideas into money.

While working on this book, Chris Guillebeau studied the development of 1,500 firms. Their owners invested about $100 and managed to transform their businesses into companies earning over $50,000. Afterwards, he chose fifty of the most exciting cases.

It has turned out that the majority of these businessmen have no special skills, but they have monetized some of their personal passions. In his book he tells what these people have done to earn money, how much they have invested in their companies and what mistakes they have made.

He has performed a deep analysis of their businesses and determined their secrets of success. The author of this book claims that you do not need to have a business plan or an academic degree to successfully run a business, you just need a service or a product that other people will pay for.

The main ideas of the guide are: if you can do something in a good way, you are probably good at something else, too; you should sell the product or service, but not the technique you use; sometimes, it is better to start acting instead of wasting time on planning.

#7 The Millionaire Fastlane by MJ DeMarco

The author of this book has founded The Fastlane Forum, a forum dedicated to the development of businesses. Sure, the philosophy of Fastlane Entrepreneurship is its major topic.

The main idea of the book is that there is a worthy alternative to getting rich in a traditional slow way: receiving proper education and a job, saving 10% of your income, investing your savings in the stock market and retiring rich.

Instead, you can achieve a great deal in a fast way. This book teaches people how to become young millionaires. It addresses such topics as the law of wealth, the reasons for business failures and poorness. The author discloses the secrets of getting rich and dispels wide-spread myths about running companies.

The conclusion

Most novice entrepreneurs read business guides and watch specialized videos in order to learn useful business secrets. Today, there are millions of such books available; still, it is advisable to pay attention to those who have already proven to be worthy of your attention. You don’t want to waste hours on the methods and techniques that don’t work, do you?

The list of books above contains guides written by people who have achieved a great deal in business and can be justly named gurus. Most of them are successful entrepreneurs who have tested their methods while running their own companies.

As you can see, their tips and advice are trustworthy. In addition to practical business recommendations, they offer their readers different approaches to leading a life. In fact, money is only the means of enjoying it. If you follow their advice you will, no doubt, manage to earn a good living and to relish your life.

]]>qaadminhttps://it-blog.qarea.com/?p=53942016-09-16T12:06:31Z2016-08-02T08:23:20ZIf your HQ is in New York, London or the Silicon Valley, you are obligated to pay a fortune for your IT development team. However, hiring somebody for a lower price doesn’t mean the sacrificing quality. On the contrary, there are multiple advantages of opting for offshore outsourcing. Here is a short, yet exhaustive guide...

]]>If your HQ is in New York, London or the Silicon Valley, you are obligated to pay a fortune for your IT development team. However, hiring somebody for a lower price doesn’t mean the sacrificing quality. On the contrary, there are multiple advantages of opting for offshore outsourcing.

Here is a short, yet exhaustive guide to follow, if you want to ensure that your offshore development team rocks.

Meet in person

Stay with your prospective team for a while, make sure you get on well and understand each other in all senses. People are people, not mere resources, there are certain psychological patterns which are to be followed to ensure they work effectively and they care about your product, and not just perform work because they have to. Arrange a Skype call every then and now at the very least.

Cultural differences matter

There may be certain cultural discrepancies you need to be aware of. Eastern European (for instance, Ukrainian) and let’s say, Indian developers may think and say different things about the same code which is not very good. Indian people don’t like conflicts and they will say that everything is OK, whereas Ukrainians are a bit too rough on the edges. They don’t have any issues telling that the code sucks, while it is just not perfect.

You need to understand those two different points of view. In either case, go for the bitter truth in any project you are investing money in and ensure that employees say what they mean, not what you would like to hear.

Employer branding

The best way to recruit the best talent is to make your brand recognizable, known and attractive. You don’t need just software engineers, after all. You want the cream of the crop, right? If this is true, the competition is going to be tough, and the best way to win it, is to start trying to win it earlier than the others (and to make the best players want to play in your ‘team’).

Treat your offshore development teams the same way you treat your HQ team. Offer perks and try to make your brand credible. Making your brand credible and attractive should be the purpose of your employer branding. As a result, you will be able to attract and retain the best developers.

Invite engineers to your HQ to stay for a while. This will give them a chance to learn more about your business processes and feel more like a part of your team.

Treat people nicely, wherever they are from and wherever you are from. Because the key to effective cooperation is via mutual respect and trust. And there is no way you can circumvent it.

Contact IT development companies instead of individual freelancers

If you employ a software development company, it will mitigate the risks. On the other hand, a freelance developer may disappear, and an employee who may suddenly disappear will be replaced with another person of the same kind, thus leading to a corrupt circle.

Yes, the hourly rate of a freelancer is lower, but it is safer to work with software development companies. All the potential risks, sick leaves and professionalism-based issues are covered and taken care of.

Additional Reasons

Facilitated cooperation. If people inside one team work in one office, it’s easier for them to cooperate and communicate. The number of misunderstandings is reduced.

Easier to control attendance.

Internet speed, newest hardware and equipment, access to the latest technologies are much better than the ones individual freelancers have.

How to choose the team

The best developers are not the best speakers. They are not the most talkative people or the ones with the best level of English or the most eloquent, so you should take note of it when choosing which developers to hire.

The code is worth a million words

It would be great to look at his/her code and at his/her activity at Github. Checking social media, for instance, Facebook, Twitter (to see what they are interested in, and what they are talking about).

Opt for asking personal questions to see how they fit into the team, not asking too many tech questions since they can be prepared beforehand and won’t show your candidates real professional level and expertise.

You need to detect their real attitude to work and your product.

Building an offshore development team is like a partnership. If you want your offshore team to surpass the competition, it should become a fully-fledged extension of your in-house team.

]]>1qaadminhttps://it-blog.qarea.com/?p=53892016-09-16T12:08:25Z2016-07-27T05:59:26ZApple makes an all-out effort to make the App Store a “walled garden” and keep the owners of their mobile gadgets safe and sound… unless it doesn’t. The garden is still filled with snakes, bugs and hungry malware. Despite all the built-in security features, hackers manage to penetrate approximately 40% of the most-used free iOS...

The state of facts for every developer is, one can’t just rely on Apple data protection measures and call it a day. You need to implement protection right into your app functionality.

Find out how to make your iOS app as secure as Fort Knox without much effort by following these tips.

1. Sock away sensitive data!

The critical and yet most common mistake iOS developers make is failing to secure data storage and transferring. This inconsideration leads the OWASP Top 10 vulnerability list for mobile apps.

Due to weak protection, the hacker group AntiSec has hijacked and exposed the personal data of one million Apple customers. They claimed to obtain full names, addresses, and phone numbers of 10 million more owners of Apple’s iPhones and iPads.

When you’re developing an app, by the nature of the case you have to decide what data to keep on a device, and which to transmit back to the database. The best time to do so is before your team have started the magical process of turning coffee into code.

This is the rule of thumb for each mobile app developer to follow: Don’t store sensitive data locally if you can avoid it.

Yes, keeping user data directly on their iPhone or iPad is tempting. The more of it you store on the device, the faster your app performs. Hence the better user experience.

Well, you can’t have the best of both worlds. It wouldn’t be rocket science for a willing hacker to pull out any personal, financial, and legal information that your app stores locally. It doesn’t help that a lot of users don’t update their iOS timely. Currently near 20 million iPhones aren’t receiving security updates at all!

Also, if they happened to lose their device, or if it is stolen, all their private data is lost.

2. Don’t leave the key under the “welcome” mat

What if you absolutely need to store some sensitive data locally? In some cases it’s required for the app to work properly.

Then, for crying out loud, don’t keep it in plain text! Use Apple’s File Protection Mechanism, or any of the countless encrypting tools to safeguard user-grade data from attackers.

Make sure that all data exchange between your iOS app and its back-end web services is encrypted at every turn. Your app’s performance is only as secure and reliable as its weakest link.

To protect your iOS app from reverse-engineering you should include strong binary protection schemes.

Use SSL/TLS protocols to prevent “man-in-the-middle” attack. All the SSL certificates must be 2048 bit-keys based. Cracking the last generation certificate would take over 6,4 quadrillion years. For comparison, it’s “only” 13.8 billion years since the Big Bang. The Universe will come to an end before some cyber-villain will come anywhere close to cracking it!

After encrypting your client-server communication, make sure the key itself is well-protected. In other words, don’t hardcode your crypto key, and don’t store it locally on the device. A good practice is to create a key exchange system, and keep the keys on a remote secure server.

3. Trust no user input

Did your parents tell you not to trust strangers, and not to take candies from them? I bet they did, probably more often than necessary.

Your application is your child, right? Then teach it to handle all user requests as untrusted. This is how you can secure identification and authorization:

Make sure your app accepts only properly validated SSL certificates. You can achieve this by setting thesetAllowsAnyHTTPSCertificate

Implement URL schemes for extra-validation. There is no such thing as too much precaution, especially if your app is for corporate usage.
In addition, you want to prevent injection-based attacks, and weed malicious SQL statements out of your app’s databases. This is where OS command injection, SQL injection, JSON/XML injection and similar techniques come in handy.

Double-check what network resources your app can get access to. Then think about whether it’s justified.Last year Apple faced a 5 million dollar lawsuit, and made iPhone 5 owners mad, over a new feature. Their Wi-Fi Assist was sneakily switching to cellular mode, supposedly to help them stay in-touch when Wi-Fi connection is poor, thus gulping down cellular data without permission.

4. Handle sessions properly

What good is installing a monster-lock on the door if you leave it wide-open? And that’s what mobile apps are often guilty of. Quite often they are clumsy when it comes to handling sessions. In some cases, the sessions are left hanging open infinitely. It creates a loophole for attackers.

Don’t let your app override session timeouts or reconnect automatically. Timeouts exist for a reason. And the reason isn’t to annoy users, as one might think, but to prevent infinitely open sessions.

Make sure your app’s session identifiers are strong. They have to use the largest character set available, and to be randomized.

Be careful when implementing “Remember Me” Check if your app kills the session after the logged-in user has closed it, and whether their login/password are stored safely.

5. Try to break into your own house

So, you went above and beyond to make your app hacker-proof by following the previous steps. Your product is rich, well-performing, full-featured, and ready to launch.

Hold on just a second.

Remember all these functional tests, performance tests, integration tests you had to run to make your product that clean and shiny? Now it’s time for one more kind – penetration testing. You can hire white-hat hackers for that, and let them try to break in. You’ll be surprised by how many missed loopholes and uncovered gaps they find.

According to statistics, the companies that never perform penetration testing have twice as much open vulnerabilities in their software, compared with those which run pen tests annually.

Of course, you could never guarantee a 100% unhackable application – let’s be realistic. Neither you can follow every single clueless user of your product and talk them out of clicking sketchy links and installing fishy software.

What you can do after a release is to keep caring about your customers by providing tech-support and security patches. Try to come as close as possible to ideal. It’s up to you!

]]>qaadminhttps://it-blog.qarea.com/?p=53762016-09-16T12:09:09Z2016-07-13T09:40:24ZBeing a competition between leading IT services companies, Big Data market promises to grow only bigger. It should make choosing Big Data storage for your company easy, right? Wrong. When it comes to choosing fast and responsive, yet low-cost storage, typically “pick any two” principle still applies. Is it possible to achieve both high performance...

]]>Being a competition between leading IT services companies, Big Data market promises to grow only bigger. It should make choosing Big Data storage for your company easy, right? Wrong. When it comes to choosing fast and responsive, yet low-cost storage, typically “pick any two” principle still applies. Is it possible to achieve both high performance and flexibility without going overboard cost-wise?

It is, and here are a few tips that will help in adjusting Big Data storage to your requirements.

Choosing open source big data tools

Big Data storage capacity is important – obviously the more the better. But it’s not the only condition of making it fast and responsive.

Get a proper toolkit of Big Data processing applications, and you will drastically improve input/output performance of a storage. Luckily, quite a few of them are open source. Besides, a wide support base of the developers improves their quality regularly to keep it up to date.

Hadoop and Spark are considered the leading open source frameworks for storing large sets of data. Hadoop, for instance, achieves high data retrieving speed by horizontal scaling. It allows to proceed data way more quickly comparing to SQL based platforms.

Moreover, you get a possibility to optimize server capacity usage. By buying a more capacious server with faster discs you get a respective performance gain with Hadoop. Whereas increasing the amount of the machines to store your data under SQL based platforms can become ridiculously wasteful. At some point, the more powerful physical storage you need, the less productivity outcome you get. In other words – the more you pay, the less you get.

A newer Big Data Analytics framework, Apache Spark, is also widely known for its fast performance. It also provides an easy access to your data due to implementation of Dataframes API. It supports different storage formats and has plenty of advanced tools to tweak the usage of your storage resources. You will also find over a hundred of third-party libraries and features for Spark, that were developed by its support community.

Among the other handy open source analytical tools and frameworks are Apache Storm, Apex, SlamData, Drill, HBase, NiFi. As well as a wide variety of cloud services that will stand in good stead for smaller scale companies and startups.

Improving flexibility and speed with NoSQL based technologies

There is a lot of reasons why we love relational data model based storages. But velocity is certainly not one of them. Executing each of the queries takes a bit of time that may seem to be minuscule (insignificant) on a smaller scale. But when you operate hundreds of interrelated tables, it adds up to an unpleasantly impressive speed drop.

Think of trying to get in touch with a certain Empire State Building employee by checking out every single room (even after you’ve found him in the first one) instead of calling him through the reception.

Now, NoSQL based technologies don’t use queries, which fastens data proceeding. Given that, bringing NoSQL distributed databases in your business can make a huge difference. Especially in cases where its efficiency relies on near real-time manipulating large amounts of data. They are reported of being able to speed up data access and management in as much as a hundred times!

Moreover, NoSQL is adjusted to operating unstructured data or data with unannounced structure. It’s a great solution for increasing database’s flexibility. New data types integration will become way more easy if compared to SQL based platforms.

Software-defined storage

This approach allows you to run storage services on general-purpose hardware, making it way more cheap. Your company can choose storage hardware components that work the best for its purposes, e.g. flash storage to increase performance, or more capacious HDDs.

Also, some software-defined storage services let you leverage hardware, which provides one more way of money saving.

In-memory data storage

While not being the cheapest solution, in-memory storage technologies are certainly worth consideration. Comparing to hard disk storage, the improvement of data access speed is reported to be ten thousand to one million faster. It’s mind-blowing!

Due to query optimization, in-memory storage allows to decrease server load, thus to increase its useful capacity. It allows to proceed multiple simultaneous data requests, which is of particular benefit in interactive media business, warehouse management etc. It’s also being a reasonable investment in case your business relies on rapid data changes and fast query response.

Some of the most known platforms providing in-memory Big Data storage technologies are Alluxio and BlueData.

Separation of Big Data and Fast Data

The middle ground business solution between HDD and a RAM data storage is to combine both. It’s not uncommon for the IT companies to use in-memory storage for a part of data that requires quick access and rapid updating, while keeping the main, less frequently changing databases on storage servers. By this approach they achieve a compromise in terms of cost and speed.

As you see, there is quite a few ways to achieve fast and flexible storage for your company Big Data without paying arm and leg. Which one suits you the best?

]]>1qaadminhttps://it-blog.qarea.com/?p=53662016-09-16T12:15:51Z2016-06-15T07:34:50ZIt’s safe to say there will not be a lack of demand for iOS games anytime soon. Games account for almost a half of all the downloads on the App Store. If you’ve decided to come into play with your own iOS game, get ready for it to be cut-throat. Currently, developers submit over 200...

#1. Divide and conquer!

Before you start, there is one not very exciting yet utterly important thing to do. You need to think through your future app concept carefully and tell game mechanics from the game content it’s going to have.

For example, if you’re developing a platformer, game mechanics include your character’s controls, physics, the enemies’ behavior etc. Game content, in turn, is all the different kinds of levels of your game world.

You may have 20 or 200 levels with their own objects, textures, and landscapes to amuse the player. But the mechanics will be the same from location to location.

To achieve exceptional gameplay, bear in mind the rule: you should model game mechanics in code. Everything else should not be in code files.

Otherwise, you end up with a ton of duplicate code, which is a big no-no in development. Your game will be ponderous and painful to support. Besides, if you want to make a single change in gameplay, you’ll have to go through each of the level files, which can be hundreds!

If your game is rich and complex, you can split it into gameplay files and resource files. The resource files will store a collection of different game objects, positions, and animations while gameplay files will hard-code the mechanics.

#2. Integrate time-dependent actions with core timer

Update loop is the concept that orchestrates your game’s actions, making its world look whole. It works like a timer that sets how often the game is rendered to the screen.

Typically mobile games are rendered 60 frames per second. But sometimes developers prefer to set their own timers for specific actions.

What they often forget is that the global rendering speed can slow down significantly in mobile games. It happens when the game is complex, or when the iPhone it’s running on is overloaded.

Then your game actions start to run out of sync. What was a harmonious world falls apart. Magic evaporates.

To avoid this issue, use the timer your game engine provides – not your own. And when you need to add your own specifically-timed actions, integrate them with the internal timer.

This way, if the rendering speed drops down from 60 frames per second, all the time-dependent actions will stay in-sync, and your game will still be looking smooth.

#3. Control memory consumption

Don’t let your app treat the device’s memory like it’s an all-you-can-eat buffet. You should discover that memory usage can be restricted in different ways on the iPods and iPads, so you can’t develop your game on the assumption that it can occupy all available memory resources.

The trick for decreasing memory consumption is to avoid using the png loading function of Apple’s GLSprite Demo. It eats a lot of memory and caches images, slowing down your game performance.

Besides, you have to think ahead when designing the sprites for an iOS-based game. Make it a habit of cropping the sprites tightly and accurately when drawing them. The iOS system will be slow at mixing if you don’t take care of it.

In a similar vein, always choose the textures that help to boost the app’s rendering performance. Using the right textures also saves a lot of memory. Don’t forget that texture compression isn’t available for sprites in iOS games.

#4. Avoid third party libraries

Often developers take the path of least resistance and simply build their games around third party libraries instead of looking for their own solutions.

Well, as an iOS developer you can’t pull it off. Apple forbids the integration of third party apps into games which are meant to be used on iPads and iPhones.

Of course, you can still take a shot and hope no one notices. But if you want to be on the safe side, and want your product to be featured on the App Store, you’re better off avoiding third party libraries.

#5. Choose the best development platform

By choosing the right development software, you can drastically accelerate your workflow and focus on the creative part of it instead of the routine. Of course, the choice depends on your game genre, animation, and user input solutions etc. Look through the major game development platforms and pick the one that suits your goals the best.

GameMaker is one of the favored platforms among both iOS and Android game developers. It provides all the necessary tools for end-to-end game building, has a drag-and-drop interface, and exporting tools. This system also has its own built-in script language, similar to JavaScript. The codebase of GameMaker allows you to directly export your game to the iOS platform.

Stencyl is another great platform which allows you to create games without coding skills. It has an intuitive interface and rich toolset. The games built with its help have been sponsored by such leading publishers as Newgrounds, Kongregate, ArmorGames etc.

LiveCode is a powerful coding platform for creating native games and apps. It provides numerous extensions, widgets, and libraries to speed-up the development process.

#6. Befriend useful tools!

Finally, you don’t have to develop your game the hard way. There are plenty of game engines, frameworks, and various tools to make iOS game development fun and effortless. Feel free to use them, to deliver the best to your future players!

Unity Mobile is an advanced mobile version of the most widely used game engine, Unity. It supports both iOS and Android.

Unreal Development Kit is an alternate engine for mobile apps and games. It will be especially useful if you’re planning to make a 3D simulator game. Besides, it also provides a free version.

Additionally, consider these awesome tools that are specifically made for iOS game developers:

iTorque – game editor for the entire iOS device ecosystem. Its open source version is available as well;

Now you know how to make your iOS game neat, light-weight, and easy to support. You probably can’t wait to start creating all the stunning locations of its universe, and the glorious adventures your customers will be going through.

What are you waiting for? There’s a lot of exciting work ahead of you!

]]>1qaadminhttps://it-blog.qarea.com/?p=53522016-09-16T12:17:54Z2016-05-10T11:18:49ZThe very best startup ideas tend to have three things in common: they’re something the founders themselves want, that they themselves can build, and that few others realize are worth doing. Microsoft, Apple, Yahoo, Google, and Facebook all began this way. Paul Graham, Y Combinator We’ve read multiple breathtaking success stories and even more heart-breaking...

The very best startup ideas tend to have three things in common: they’re something the founders themselves want, that they themselves can build, and that few others realize are worth doing. Microsoft, Apple, Yahoo, Google, and Facebook all began this way.

Paul Graham, Y Combinator

We’ve read multiple breathtaking success stories and even more heart-breaking stories of business failures, with all the reasons and numbers behind them.

We can analyze all the stats and predict that an IT development startup will flop or thrive. There is a proven way to plan everything, mitigate risks and avoid mistakes.

Or is there?

No.

Today’s world is dynamic and so is the market. You can’t foresee everything, because each startup case is unique.

Besides, you won’t enjoy the sweet fruit of success without your own bitter share of mistakes first.They come with the recipe. Take it or leave it.

So can’t you learn from other startups’ experience?

You won’t manage to predict and avoid all the pitfalls. But you CAN use others’ experience to avoid the most critical ones.

Killer #1: Am I creating the right thing?

Is your product in demand? You may think that it is, but thinking is not 100% certainty.

While it may seem too evident and simple, lack of customers is the #1 reason why so many startups with great ideas sank (42% of cases).

Your product may be the most creative and ground-breaking ever. Yet, if there aren’t crowds of customers waiting to buy it to solve their burning problem, your business will be penniless. As Patient Communicator wrote about their post-mortem:

“I realized, essentially, that we had no customers because no one was really interested in the model we were pitching. Doctors want more patients, not an efficient office.”

At the end of the day, business is business. It is purely market-based, ruthless and even unfair at times.

Dreams and visions can take you that far. Inspiring others does trigger the sales process. Yet strength comes in numbers. So does success.

Master the art of listening

That’s right. Just listen to what people have to say about your solution. As early as possible. Get feedback from your product’s potential buyers.

No, not your friends and family. They will definitely love it and say you are heading for success. Or even worse. They won’t have the heart to kill you with the bitter truth.

It’s better to try to get feedback about your product before it is done and goes live. You’ll save a fortune and lots of time this way.

Create a landing page, make a demo product, try to reach out to your potential clients and show it to them, collect the feedback, use the critique to create MVP (minimal viable product) and present it to your clients again to see if you hit the mark.

Fact-based data will help you to define the priority features of your IT development product. Focus on them. Start your product from stuff that is majorly relevant to your clients, not your ego.

Killer #2: Not enough romance

Think like your customers. The best way to think like one of your clients is to be one of them. If you create a product to help yourself solve a problem, because the solution is missing or not good enough, this means:

Killer #4: Your team’s capabilities are amazing, or are they?

Do you have skilled and qualified people on your team with varied skillsets to cover all the key aspects? Experienced investors often take this into account when choosing whom to back.

Startup’s team is its most valuable asset. Not money, but people!

Don’t put all of your eggs in one basket. It’s true that a smart, experienced investor can give you a hand with business development, networking and marketing. But investors often show more interest in you if you and your team can handle everything on your own. Giving you a hand should just level up your business, not build it from scratch.

Besides, money from angels comes with a price – less control over your beloved brainchild.

That’s why investing most of your effort into your team is your number one priority.

Killer # 5: Plain old competition

Before launching, do your homework and research the market. Is your product unique? What is its selling point? Will it withstand the competition?

Look out for factors that will make you fail the competition. Your product may be super innovative, but if it’s hard to use no one will buy it. Ever.

Competitive analysis is, by far, the best way to understand if your IT development idea is worthwhile. It may lead to radical changes in the product’s scope.

Changes people will love. Analysis will allow you to channel resources into the right direction. The direction where every other competitor is weaker than your idea.

Blue ocean products (the ones without competition) are a must if you want to create a better product than your competitors.

But remember, if there isn’t a thing apps can do in 2016 maybe there is a reason for it?